The Sacrifice

The Sacrifice

Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky • 1986 • Sweden

The final film from the great Andrei Tarkovsky is a moving meditation on faith and family that builds to one of the most famous climaxes in film history. Produced in exile in Sweden with a crew of Ingmar Bergman’s closest collaborators, The Sacrifice concerns Alexander (Erland Josephson), a wealthy lecturer in a lavish seaside manor. When World War III breaks out, Alexander makes a deal with God to spare his family – one that will have devastating consequences. This typically profound treatise on mortality was produced while Tarkovsky was sick with the cancer that killed him shortly after he completed the film.

THE SACRIFICE • OFFRET
Written and directed by Andrei Tarkovsky
Cinematography by Sven Nykvist
Music by Johann Sebastian Bach, Watazumido-Shuso
Starring: Erland Josephson, Susan Fleetwood, Allan Edwall

In Swedish with English subtitles

Winner of the Grand Prix at Cannes Film Festival 1986

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The Sacrifice
  • The Sacrifice

    Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky • 1986 • Sweden

    The final film from the great Andrei Tarkovsky is a moving meditation on faith and family that builds to one of the most famous climaxes in film history. Produced in exile in Sweden with a crew of Ingmar Bergman’s closest collaborators, The Sacrifice ...

Extras

  • Klassiki member Graham Hooper introduces The Sacrifice, our new community pick

    Klassiki member Graham Hooper has chosen Andrei Tarkovsky’s swansong masterpiece The Sacrifice as his pick for our latest community screening. Watch as Graham introduces the film’s treatment of metaphysical and earthly concerns and Tarkovsky’s homage to Ingmar Bergman.

    Klassiki members can recom...

  • Introduction to Tarkovsky in exile

    Klassiki curator Sam Goff introduces viewers to the late career of the great Andrei Tarkovsky, when the director was working outside of his native Soviet Russia. In his final two features, Nostalghia (1983) and The Sacrifice (1986), Tarkovsky reckoned with his estrangement from the culture that h...

  • Notes on The Sacrifice

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